Home alone.

I was left on my own overnight while my lot popped off for a couple of days. I never get bored on my own. With my house to supervise boredom isn't on my agenda. They are very lucky they can leave me here to look after the house when they go away. Anything could happen to the place if I weren't on the spot. One of my best friends is Pauline-the-Postie. She comes in to sort things for me when she has finished her village round. She gives me my crunchies, changes my litter, tops up my water and hay bowl and generally checks me over. We have a chat and a cuddle although usually I am much more interested in my food. Then my Joanne, or Simon, comes after work to say goodnight and give me my evening carrot. If they have time we watch a bit of television then they text my lot to give them an update. I appreciate a day or two when I don't have so many interruptions or somebody saying "What are you up to Harve?", "Come out of there Harve", "You're very quiet under there, Harve", as if I'd get up to anything troublesome. What a nightmare it must be to be imprisoned in a hutch, however large, perhaps with one visit a day from human family. What do those rabbits do all the time if the only light they see is through a piece of chicken wire. What have we done through the centuries to deserve this? All we ask is love, loyalty and a bit of freedom. It costs nothing.

Hopefully Harve has forgotten we took him to rabbit kennels for a week to try it out. Our careful instructions were not followed, perhaps they thought they knew better and when we returned he had stopped eating. We took him straight to our brilliant vet who kept him in for a few days and hand fed him with a complete food mixture to get his system going again. It took a week with covering antibiotics to get him back to his old self. I sat up at night with him to make sure he knew I was there. Never again.

Birthday boy

I'm six today! This is the present list I made and left by my basket last night.

1. One whole banana just for me, all at once.

2. One whole, large carrot just for me, all at once.

3. One piece of carrot cake with extra large juicy raisins.

4. One packet of cornflakes.

5. One ripe pear.

6. One ripe peach, peeled.

7. One bouquet garni of mint, parsley, dandelion leaves and rocket.

8. One whole day when I don't hear the word "NO".

No need to wrap.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME.

Ok, where's the carrot cake?

Happy Birthday from all of us, Harve.

People say the oddest things.

We had visitors today. As a very social animal I like to keep up to date with group activities as nature intended me to so I dashed smartly under the table beside all the feet to be in the best position to catch up with gossip. People think I sleep a lot of the time under there but I don't miss much. I learn a lot listening to chatter while I pretend to doze. Such a great way to collect notes for my diary. I realised very early on humans don't give much thought before they open their mouths. This afternoon for instance one of them looked down at me, laughed and asked "Which end is which?" I mean although I am black all over apart from the grey tips on my front toes, people who can't tell a head from a tail shouldn't be allowed out alone. Then with no consideration for my finer feelings she peered again and said "I see he likes blackberries." My PCG was quick off the mark as she spotted my caecotroph. "Not well enough," she replied drily. In my opinion verbalising is rarely a good move.

My Primary Care Giver frequently explains to friends who question her about life with me that my behaviour is very kittenish. She must mean my play behaviour because I am nothing like the dotty. Also, when I do my speed running round the house with my long ears flapping debonairly she says I'm like a huge black bumble bee trying to take off. You see what I mean, no consideration.

By the way, Smudge, a binkie is much like a high kitten leap but we rabbits do whirly twists while we are airborn. We can either execute a complete turn in the air or land facing in a totally different direction. Air aerobics are wildly uplifting. Try it. You may have to take off from a height if you are a sedate cat.


I'll have to think more carefully before I say anything.

Ways and means.

I've been working on a couple of new ways of getting behind the television if there are no cushions stuffed in each side. Although, with a bit of scrabbling, I can easily pull them out then clamber over if my primary care people are dozing, which they do a lot these days. You have to keep planning if you're a house rabbit, after all in the wild I'd be designing new burrows all the time. Anyway, if they're wide awake, this is what I've tried and it works pretty well. First of all I dash round the room flipping the occasional binkie to entertain them, then, without pausing for a second .... you have to be quick here .... I dive, mid-flight, behind the set before they've realised what's happened. This brings loud applause, well, hand clapping, shouts of Har-vey, Har-vey, and other screams of delight. They love it.
Then there's the gangster method. I mooch nonchalantly backwards and forwards in front of the screen, looking casually in other directions as if I'm casing the joint then suddenly twist and jump with expert precision down the side! They never expect it. I love a good chuckle. People don't realise what a sense of humour we have unless they keep rabbits themselves. I planned all this to get my own back on my pcg who started hiding behind the sofa and jumping out at playtime. She surprised me a couple of times, I have to admit but the third time I was ready and crept along close behind her. She didn't know where I was so she was the one who got the surprise.

We often play together on the floor.

I'm getting too old for all this.

Musings

I think about food a lot and everybody knows rabbits nibble. Our teeth are made for nibbling, big ones at the front then little ones for munching. Some of us nibble in fields one blade of grass at a time, garden relatives nibble on lawns and brave or silly rabbits nibble by the roadside. Nibbling is fine for some but it's far too slow for me. I like a good mouthful. With a mouthful you get more flavours. That's one of the many good things about being a house bunny, you can stuff as much grassy salad into your mouth at a time as you want because it's picked for you. I just shove my face and my front legs into the pile and open my mouth. There's a patch of grass by the back door especially to keep my teeth busy if I am ever bored but I don't bother. If I stare at it for long enough then go for something I'm not allowed, they cut a pile for me. It's all a matter of knowhow.
If I spent all my time nibbling, how would I get through my daily chores? I mean, even small things like making my bed and writing my diary wouldn't get done. And who would clear the cobwebs from the dark corners of the inglenook where, I'm ashamed to say, nobody else ever goes? I'd be nibbling all the time. Can't be done.

Fortunately, there's not enough flavour in furniture for Harve's taste. Nor in electric wires thank goodness.

It IS a cat.

The worst has happened. The dotty is here again. The family has gone to visit somebody called Florence who lives in Italy and Florence doesn't want the dotty. Nobody asked ME if I wanted it. I should have guessed when the little basket was put on the floor the other night that something was afoot. I tried to get rid of it by chewing through some of the wicker but I was told off.

You should see the dotty's tail now, it's a mile long. Last time it came it kept trying to catch it but couldn't reach. Now it's so long it trips over it. That's how I know it's a cat. I think long tails are very common and showy. Rabbits' scuts are so classily understated.

They haven't closed the door between our two rooms today and it has been bouncing at me again. If I stand my ground it makes itself as small as it can by flopping out but now and again it flaps its paw at me and the pins are still there. It dashed right at me under my table a few times and attacked me but I wasn't going to be pushed away from my own patch, so when I'd had enough, I did a very high binkie, landed on top of it and gave it a hefty shove with my back legs. I was superb. It has been very polite since.

I've had a few laughs though so far. It tries to get right inside the sun hat to nap the way it did last time but it's too big now. The dotty, not the hat. It hangs over the edges. And when it was put outside to play it used one of the garden troughs planted nicely with flowers as a litter tray! It made no attempt to come back inside as I always do, to use the proper place. Such awful manners.
I think I'll have an early night and see what tomorrow brings. I may bite it if it gets too pushy. I can, easily. That's how Willow the dog and I became good friends. I only had to do it twice and she is much bigger than the dotty.

At last Harve made a stand. The proof of the pud will be if he allows her to watch television with him.

Who needs clocks.

Weatherwise it's been a mixed sort of day today, warm then blowy with spots of rain. Changes in weather put me out a bit. I can feel when there's going to be a heavy downpour with thunder and flashes. Some dogs and cats make a terrible fuss but not me. I'm a laid back chap most of the time.

And talking about time that's another speciality of mine. You might not know this but I have a magical sense telling me when things should happen. Harry Potter needed a rabbit as a sidekick, not an owl. That was a big mistake. A rabbit would have been able to feel danger looming. Too late now.

Anyway for some weird reason at the end of last year they moved time backwards without telling me. I dashed past them into the sitting room for the 6 o'clock news as usual and felt such a fool when I heard the church clock strike five. Worse still everybody laughed at me. I did the only thing possible at a time like that and zapped into washing mode. Cats learned this trick from rabbits. If in doubt fudge the issue by having a wash. Post Office Margaret in our village says it can take her cats a month to get used to the silly time change. Well, cats! It would wouldn't it. That White Rabbit in the book didn't need a pocket watch to tell him he was late. He should have known. I would.